Secondary Modeling Systems Research Articles

Critique of ideology or/and analysis of culture? Barthes and Lotman on secondary semiotic systems

The article compares Roland Barthes’s and Juri Lotman’s notions of ‘second-order semiological systems’ [systemes sémiologique seconds] and ‘secondary modelling systems’ [вторичные моделирующие системы]. It investigates the shared presuppositions of the two theories and their important divergences from each other, explaining them in terms of the opposite strategic roles that the notions of ‘ideology’ and ‘culture’ play in the work of Barthes and Lotman, respectively. The immersion of secondary modelling systems in culture as a “system of systems” characterized by internal heterogeneity, allows Lotman to evidence their positive creative potential: the result of the tensions arising from cultural systemic plurality and heterogeneity may coincide with the emergence of new, unpredictable meanings in translation. The context of Barthes’s second-order semiological systems is instead provided by highly homogeneous ideological frames that appropriate the signs of the first-order system and make them into forms for significations which confirm, reproduce and transmit previously existing information generated by hegemonic social and cultural discourses. The article shows how these differences resurface and, partially, fade away in the theories of the text that Barthes and Lotman elaborated in the 1970s. The discussion is concluded by some remarks on the possible topicality of Barthes’s and Lotman’s approaches for contemporary semiotics and the humanities in general.

A Formação do Cânon Bíblico: Considerações a partir da Semiótica da Cultura

Recent studies on biblical canon present it as in analogy with the use of this term in modern linguistics. Canon, however, is not linguistic code, but a second degree code. Considering that, the concept of modeling presented by Tartu-Moscow Semiotics School for the Study of Culture is important to understand the history of the formation of the biblical canon. Within the framework of closed canon, secondary modeling systems are superimposed to the linguistic code of the Greek and Latin Bible, and subsequent vernacular versions.

Iúri Lotman e a Escola de Tártu-Moscou

<title>Resumo:</title><p>Objetivamos descrever a atuação de Iúri Lotman na qualidade de iniciador e um dos participantes de destaque da Escola Semiótica de Tártu-Moscou (1960-1980). O trabalho conta com documentos e fotografias do arquivo pessoal de Serguei Nekliúdov, também integrante da Escola, que ilustram as atividades dos semioticistas no contexto do sistema soviético. Abordamos ainda alguns fundamentos do pensamento da Escola de Tártu-Moscou e de Lotman, como a noção de “sistemas modelizantes secundários” e a lógica das oposições binárias.</p>

The place of language among sign systems: Juri Lotman and Émile Benveniste

This paper seeks to shed light on an unwritten chapter in the history of Tartu semiotics, that is, to draw a parallel between Juri Lotman and Émile Benveniste on the status of natural language among other systems of signs. The tenet that language works as a ‘primary modelling system’ represents one of the trademarks of the Tartu-Moscow school. For Lotman, the primacy assigned to natural language in respect to other systems of signs lied in the fact that the former functions as a ‘model’ for the latter thus regarded as ‘secondary modelling systems’. Yet how does language carry out its function of being a model for other sign systems? Is language the only primary modelling system? This paper seeks to foster the abovementioned claim of the primacy of natural language and argues that this issue deserves a closer inspection. In order to follow this route, it suggests a parallel between Lotman and Benveniste arguing that there exist several points in common that lead to a convergence of positions between these two remarkable scholars. The paper explores such a possibility, arguing that Lotman’s and Benveniste’s positions open up an interesting debate with specific reference to the relations laid down between language and other system of signs.

Verse as a semiotic system

Poetry is an important challenge for semiotics, and a special area of study for the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school, since the first volume of Sign Systems Studies was Juri Lotman’s monograph Lectures on Structural Poetics (1964). From then on the concept of poetry as one of the secondary modelling systems has evolved, since in relation to poetry, the primary modelling system is natural language. In this paper, the concept of semiotic system has been re-examined and the treatment of primary and secondary semiotic systems has been significantly revised. A semiotic system can be characterized not only by its internal structure and other systems to which it is related, but also by the field upon what it is realized. The latter aspect has gained almost no attention in any treatment of semiotics; the execution of a sign is understood in the spirit of Saussure and Hjelmslev as a material realization of an abstract element (for instance, a chess piece knight can be realized with wood or plastic, but it can also remain purely virtual). At first, distinction is made between language and sign system. Every sign system consists of language and field. There are three different kinds of fields: 1) just a background – footprints on sand are a sign on the background of sand; 2) a material structured field (a football ground or a chess board in the game called Chapayev) and 3) an abstract structured field, which in its turn consists of other fields (for instance, the chess board which consists of 64 fields). Differently from a football ground, a chess board can be a purely virtual one on which virtual pieces are moved (for instance, in case of blindfold or correspondence chess). The field in its turn can be language and one language can use another language as its field. In this case we speak of primary and secondary sign systems. For instance, the prosodic system of language is a field for a verse metre, while the semantic system of language is a field for a narrative.

Tartu Summer Schools of Semiotics at the Time of Juri Lotman

Abstract The article gives a brief overview of Summer Schools in semiotics of the 1960s and 1970s that took place near Tartu, at Kääriku sports centre of the University of Tartu, and later in Tartu. These Summer Schools on secondary modelling systems were certainly the most important scientific events in the field of semiotics in Soviet Union. These meetings drew together the members of Tartu-Moscow Semiotics School. An unconstrained atmosphere of these conferences allowed a freedom of discussion that the participants had not experienced earlier and that they recall decades after.

Communication and Consciousness in the Pragmatist Critique of Representation

The pragmatist turn in Philosophy in the late XIX century and XX century was a serious attempt to refuse the privilege of the representational elements of the conscious- ness in the production of knowledge. Such privilege has its roots in Ancient Philosophy, in some consequences of the Platonic heritage, but was toughened by Modern philosophers of empiricist or aprioristic lineages within the modern concepts of Experience and Truth. With these last concepts of Experience and Truth I’m referring to the objectivising tendency that leads to identify experience with the final object resulting from the judicative fixation of relations. Due to the fixation of some basic relations the object of experience was identified and conceived with such and such characteristics as something independent of the mental or judicative activity. Such method of fixation and objectivising of relations is also present in the common-sense ideas of Reality, Experience and Truth. In the field of the theory of signs the reputation of the modern concept of representation was so vast that despite the progress in the discovery of the differential character of the linguistic units, Saussure’s well-known notion of sign and the division between “signifiant” and “signifié” still kept the reference to the double across the body/mind polarity and to the “mental image” of the sign, Vorstellung, concept or “signifié,” as the core of meaning. If Peirce and James agree in the refusal of the classical theory of representation, their rejection came from different horizons and their critiques don’t mean the same. I’ll try to show that James’s and Peirce’s attempts are not disjunctive, although they are not members of a simple addition. In the writings of the Tartu School and in T. Sebeok’s reassessment to Peircean semeiosis one finds interesting tools to reconsider the relation to the World of the “field of consciousness” and semeiosic cycles, beyond representationalism, such as the concepts of environment and primary, secondary and tertiary modelling systems. Starting with these insights I’ll propose at the end of the essay the notion of a double environment between psychic systems and systems based on communication.

The Study of Linguistic Culturology in Terms of Semiotics

Abstract In terms of semiotics, all human cultural phenomena and intellectual activities are expressed by signs to present different human achievements and the significance of human existence; they are all symbolized activities. The linguistic cultural study has a long history and is well achieved, but for the in-depth research there are more fields to cultivate. The study of linguistic culturology in terms of semiotics could result in some productive attempts: the study of the text of signs providing the research basis, the focus lying in the variations of signs information, and the secondary modeling system of signs making the research sphere; the dialogic relationship of signs building up the structure, and the dynamic equilibrium of semiosphere constructing the measurement. Above all, in terms of semiotics, the study of linguistic culturology must lead to new developments and discoveries.

Semioticians Make Strange Bedfellows! Or, Once Again: “Is Language a Primary Modelling System?”

Like other sciences, biosemiotics also has its time-honoured archive, consisting of writings by those who have been invented and revered as ancestors of the discipline. One such example is Jakob von Uexküll. As to the people who ‘invented’ him, they are either, to paraphrase a French cliché, ‘agents du cosmopolitisme sémiotique’ like Thomas Sebeok, or de jure and de facto progenitor like Thure von Uexküll. In the archive is the special issue of Semiotica 42. 1 (1982) edited by the late Sebeok and introduced by Thure von Uexküll. It is in the opening essay that Thure von UexküIl tries to restore Jakob von Uexküll’s role as a precursor of semiotics by negotiating the Elder with Saussure and the linguistics-oriented ‘semiology’ in his wake. However, semiotic mapping, in the strictly ‘disciplinary’ sense, of Jakob von Uexküll is no easy task because he ‘knew neither Peirce nor Saussure and did not use their terminology’ (Thure von Uexküll 1982,2). Because Thure prefers to call the Elder’s science ‘general semiotics’ (Thure von Uexküll 1982), this paper begins by assessing Thure von Uexküll’s semiotic configuration of Jakob, probe into the force and limits of the linguistic analogy, revisit the already time-honoured debate on the primary and secondary modelling systems, which was made famous by the Moscow-Tartu semioticians in the early 1970s, but severely criticized by Sebeok and his followers. The paper engages Sebeok from several fronts, directed first at his relegation of the Saussurian linguistic model, then at his critique of the Primary Modelling System, and finally at his reservation about evolutionism in light of the current debate on gene/meme co-evolution.

Lotman’s Semiosphere, Peirce’s Signs, and Cultural Processes

This paper brings Lotman’s semiotic space to bear on Peirce’s concept of the sign with respect to broad cultural processes. Consideration of cultural processes in the Peircean mode calls for an extension of Lotman’s pair of terms, primary and secondary modeling systems, in view of Peirce’s notion of the sign as triadic. As a consequence of this extension, the premise in this inquiry has it that: (1) triadic signs within complex cultural processes are interdependent, interrelated and interactive, (2) triadic signs make up an interconnected, contradictory complementary convergent whole, which is inconsistent and/or incomplete, depending upon the cultural context, (3) inconsistency and incompleteness are of the nature of Peirce’s vagueness and generality respectively, the first being chiefly of the nature of the category of Firstness and the second chiefly of the nature of Thirdness, (4) the role of Secondness unfolds through acts of selection from the possibilities of Firstness, such acts of selection involving a separation of signs, their semiotic objects and their interpretants, (5) Thirdness renders signs general, yet generalities are almost invariably incomplete, given human fallibilism, hence the ‘final sign’ or ‘final interpretant’ is always out of reach, and (6) fallibilism breeds a tendency, within broad cultural processes, toward either (a) successive differentiation (or heterogeny) of signs, or (b) hegemony, dominance and subservience, and superordination and subordination.

Womans body as a color measuring text: A signification of Bengali culture

White and Black are the most frequently used colors that have dierent types of signification to human beings in terms of getting positive or nega- tive response. Among the color hierarchy, black, the darkest color from its absorption of all lights, always denotes some denial approaches to all as- pects in all societies because human beings believe that black usually eclipses all kinds of positive entities like daytime, virtue, light, etc. On the contrary, white, the lightest color from its reflection of all visible rays of light is treated as the symbol of sacredness, purity, innocence, honesty, power, etc., all over the world. These two concepts of cultural artifacts are applied to describe the human body, especially women's appearance in the Bengali community. Bengali ethnoculture, the most complex mechanism of a hier- archical structure of human ethnicity, gives social priority to man over woman and recognizes the woman entity only from the point of view of skin color. Hence, as a living text, the black color of a woman's body usually creates typical negative signification in the society, and the white color of a woman's skin semiosises conversely. As a result, Bengali people have already invented lots of 'secondary modeling systems' and introduced some beliefs of good and bad values in the society as the reflection of color dis- crimination of a woman's body that is considered a 'primary modeling system'. This article provides a brief discussion of the ethnosemiotics of Bengali culture from the point of view of color discrimination regarding women's bodies by giving emphasis to values and color concepts of Bengali people and examples of some cultural artifacts concerning prejudicial treatment on color behavior of society. Culture is a highly ambiguous phenomenon when it is defined as a 'way of life' or 'activities of human beings' because all human beings of the world from time immemorial bear the same feelings and the same basic

Is language a primary modeling system? On Juri Lotman’s concept of semiosphere

Juri Lotman’s well-known distinction of primary modeling system versus secondary modeling system is a lasting legacy of his that has been adhered to, modified, and refuted by semioticians of culture and nature. Adherence aside, modifications and refutations have focused on the issue whether or not language is a primary modeling system, and, if not, what alternatives can be made available to replace it. As Sebeok would concur, for both biosemiosis and anthroposemiosis, language can only be a secondary modeling system on top of the biological experience of Umwelt or human sensory system. This paper proposes to explore the possibility of a “preverbal” modeling system suggested by Lotman’s spatial concept of semiosphere, and discuss its implications in cross-cultural dialogue.

Legal system: can one speak about secondary modeling system in law?

The essay examines possible affinities betweenTartu-Moscow school of cultural semiotics andlegal semiotics. The introduction briefly setsout a historical dimension of the ideologicalintegration of Tartu-Moscow semiotics (inbroader context Tartu semiotics) into thegeneral framework of legal semiotics. It arguesthat there was a `real' historical mediationbetween the members of Tartu-Moscow schoolsemiotic circle and legal scholars from Tartu.The acceptance of such a bridging link betweenlegal academic community and semioticians couldgive further impetus to construction of aspecial model of `Tartu legal semiotics'. The development of Tartu-Moscow `legalsemiotics' could be illustrated by theimplementation of a special explanatoryframework, which provide insights into the wayTartu semiotics wedded to a legal positivistphilosophy. Particular importance of such aframework (model of legal semiotics) rest onfact that the academic ideology of Tartu-Moscowschool reflects and conforms to all thehistorical peculiarities of the Soviet epoch(these peculiarities should be always kept inmind). In order to adopt Tartu-Moscow semioticsto legal semiotics, semiotic theory ofTartu-Moscow school must be recast in terms oflegal semiotics The dissemination of semioticstudies in late Soviet epoch enabled them to belinked to various theoretical enquiries intothe domain of legal methodology, ontology andepistemology. This essay puts a specialemphasis on the notion of `secondary modelingsystem' as a natural pattern for `systemacity'within the universe of law. However, in orderto understand the semiotic value of `legalsystem' it is necessary to have recourse toother systems. Therefore, this paper examinesdifferent system dimensions of law: fromgeneral notion of system and theory ofautopoetic system to sign systems. The possible synthesis of logical, sociologicaland semiotic approaches to the system of lawopens a wider multidisciplinary perspective;moreover the need for multidisciplinarysynthesis is pertinent to contemporaryphilosophical concerns. The main analyticaltask of essay is to provide an answer to aquestion of whether core semiotic concept of a`secondary modeling system' (amongst otherconcepts like `boundary', `semiosphere',`culture' and `text') is capable of enrichingand clarifying legal philosophy in a widerperspective and the semiotic account of law inparticular. A positive answer to the questionwill favor the further tight integration ofTartu-Moscow semiotic concepts into the domainof legal semiotics.

Is Our Consciousness Linguistic?

“Given the fact that the consciousness of man is a linguistic consciousness, all models superimposed on consciousness, including art, can be understood as secondary modeling systems, “ wrote Yuri Lotman in Introduction à la structure du texte artistique.

The Narrative Text as an Act of Communication

OLLOWING THE DISCOVERY of a parallelism between certain cultural phenomena and the act of communication in natural language, one of the most important tasks in contemporary semiotic analysis has become the construction, on the basis of this parallelism, of a typological model. The fruitfulness of such an approach has already been demonstrated.' The present essay examines in this light the narrative literary text, i.e., a verbal text which functions as a secondary modeling system in relation to the natural language in which it is written.2 This status of the literary text determines the similarity and the difference between such a text and an act of practical [bytovaya] communication, and it is precisely the system of similarities and differences on which is founded the model here presented. We shall first examine those basic parameters which in theory characterize any act of communication. Since the appearance of the famous Ogden-Richards triangle3 and the functional triad of C. S. Peirce4 and Charles Morris,5 the notion of connotation (pragmatics) as an inseparable and constitutive part of semiosis has become firmly established in contemporary linguistics and semiotics. By connotation is understood information about the participants in the communicative act over and beyond denotation, i.e., information about the object of communication itself. For Biihler, connotation was further analyzed into the expressive and the appellative functions in accordance with the bilateral nature of the communicative act.6 A further distinc-

The Fourth Summer School on Secondary Modeling Systems (Tartu, 17-24 August 1970)

The Fourth Summer School on Secondary Modeling Systems (Tartu, 17-24 August 1970)